Florida is no.
Florida Gators’ 2025 recruit haul featured one of the nation’s best finishes of the New Year, rising to the top 10 nationwide, with hot closings across the trail in general.
On Monday evening, the icing on the cake was obtained in the form of No. 5 Cornerback Recruit J’vari Flowes, who announced his intention to join the class in the coming months.
Miami (Fla.) Northwestern Star defensive back has been reclassified from the 2026 class ahead of the ambitious official visit schedule for the SEC and ACC as a whole, and has finally landed in the UF above the top contenders Notre Dame and Miami lastly.
Hana, an American at Under Armour who was a dual-state champion in football and track in 2024, will join second-order distances among the best in the class, including Miami native and cornerback Projection Ben Hanks Jr., despite changes to coaching for Billy Napier’s defensive staff.
Recruitment
The twist and turn were an understatement to the flower recruitment. Before Reclas moved, programs such as Pennsylvania, Syracuse, Illinois and Miami were among the top candidates aiming to make a move for the Speedster. The field then expanded in a short order after the program searched for a legal blue chipper to close out its 2025 class.
The topic of class rise was somewhat pushed from Florida, according to sources, and Florida was expected to compete with Miami and others shortly afterwards. Georgia received his first visit from his camp, followed by a re-shuffle of candidates and visits with Auburn, Notre Dame and North Carolina making the most powerful pushes of the out-of-state program.
A little surprising, even FSU and local Miami will be waning amongst their competitors as confidence has increased the most in Auburn, North Carolina and in-state gators.
Miami kicked off a week ago for a final official visit, but despite reporting fun times in the programs the camp knows best, the gap with others wasn’t that easy.
Ultimately, Florida seemed to be building a presentation that was too strong in all respects — and even the mid-March commitment buzz buzz with the Gators — and that preceded Notre Dame, UNC, and ultimately U.
Impact
Hana is one of the most explosive soccer players in the 2025 class. What makes his ceiling appealing is his football speed and his instinct as a return man, showing off both his punt return and kick return talent in 2024 as a four-return score song during Northwestern’s state title run. He also made several plays on offense as a ball carrier, touching on pay stains twice more. When soccer was in his hands, chunk play became synonymous with the name of flower.
The three-phase talent could potentially maximize the impact on an early college career at a speed of 10.43 seconds on a 100-meter dash, but it’s even brighter in the secondary. Flowers is a compact player who can blend physicality and technique on the outside, making it difficult for wide receivers of various styles to create separations against him. On Friday nights, appearing constantly throughout the 7-7 circuit, perhaps most impressively – through Under Armour All-American Game Week.
Flowers can win at the line of scrimmage with strength for pounds, and his fiery makeup speed allows him to have more chances early in the route. He may be even more effective in off-coverage, and may perform the patient via the stem of the root for a quick break, while cushioning and transitioning with fluidity on cushioning and third-level breaks. Excellent ball tracking skills improve with snap finishing ability at catch points, and pass breakups are compiled into the watch.
The overall athletic profile is part of why rival staff were considering flowers for their 5-star status in their original class just before the rival staff announced the reclassification, and is one of the best in the nation from the middle recruits. Still, he cracked the top five of the loaded cornerback group to begin his college career this spring and fall. Some technical condiments and additional experiences in different zone schemes will produce many flowers early in his college career, but in his game it’s a slight surprise if he didn’t influence him as a junior at the next level.
